Sex Worker Voices

Eris Martinet is a professional dominatrix with years of experience. She blogs on issues around female dominance, BDSM and the history of kink. Her work offers alternative perspectives on sexual dissidence.​@ErisMartinet

On a UK kink board, a Domme posted a polite entry on financial domination. What followed was a barrage of quite intense comments: from calling all findommes dangerous criminals that need to be executed summarily behind the trash bin, to the old “money grabbing bitches” cliche. This repeated itself on a different UK kink board, where men jumped in with expletives even after the initial comments by the Domme, that were intellectual and patient. With the ever emphasis of CONSENT.Now, I am no Findomme. I dabble, but most of all, I understand it very well. I see its nuances and depth. So I posted the below response. The thread is now gone but I find, among the paranoia and even the skeptical observations from other sex workers on the topic, it warrants deeper, sober analysis and debate. Especially, as the attacks on and sidelining of findom are emblematic of a wider misunderstanding of the politics of sex. Financial domination reveals an uncomfortable gender relation but one that is natural nevertheless.MY VIEWS..as posted on a discussion board where it was presented as outrageous, exploitative.I think you are assuming these ladies would impose findom on you; you’re forgetting that it is consensual, therefore there are men who have the fetish and want it indulged by their domme. A findomme doesn’t go and extract money from unwilling men any more than a disciplinarian doesn’t go and hit men on the street.Traditionally, financial domination is a real power rapport in a D/s or M/s relationship, or control through one’s finances which makes the power genuinely unbalanced. It is effectively ruling one’s life. The version you see on social media is more close related to rinsing. Some of it is a very intellectually refreshing form of sex work. Some of the Twitter dommes give insight women usually suppress in front of the man. It’s novel female sexual honesty. There are notable findommes like Bardot Smith who give it a feminist capitalist slant and made it into a bit of a cultural ripple in the US.I encountered men who begged for money to be taken from them. It’s an illusion it’s money for nothing. A domme spends years and a fortune honing her image, persona, craft and psychological understanding of men and the rapport between men and women. Or maybe she’s just born with massive looks and real intuition. These men didn’t give me cash because I asked, but because to them I symbolize a figure they need the abuse of. And there was extended interaction, a D/s relationship and guidance.It makes sense for it to be misunderstood; but remember so many people misunderstand spanking as a fetish also. It is consensual, and significant of the relationship between men and women and how submissive men are programmed (by nature, nothing evil), to bring tribute to the Goddess. It’s the dictate of evolution translated into certain mating rituals.I recommend the History and Arts of the Dominatrix, a book that explains academically the evolution of the dominatrix through history and its roots in religion.There is rinsing; there is extortion; there is blackmail. They might be subsets of financial play. But they don’t define financial domination.I am in a D/s rapport where I control the finances; allocate it where it matters and use the financial domination over the other as part of a power rapport that satisfies both parties. It’s a loving relationship. Different than Twitter sugarbabies/instadommes, isn’t it? It is the classical meaning of financial domination.Other forms exist within sex work in the dungeon relationship.It’s powerful because biology. men have evolved to be providers. I believe most evolved to be dominant providers in a totally unbalanced power rapport between genders. Where women had to marry to secure a financial position. A proportion have evolved to be financial submissive providers: where they work to bring tribute to a figure of feminine authority. I believe if you read medieval literature you will find motives of knights and aristocrats serving the Queen similar to the discourse of contemporary FemDom. I remember from classic literature the noble/chaste romance knights carried in their heart for the Queen, while they crusaded. Isn’t that the root of at least one significant strain of FemDom?To understand this rapport is a capitalist, evolutionary, economic and political discussion. You asked, so I am explaining. The view that we all work to generate income and that that is a fair deal we are getting is a bit delusional. Over the ages it was that the top of the social and political pyramid (the King, and on rare occasions, the Queen) — would get the fruits of the labour of various strata beneath them; leaving them 1. enough to survive, and continue being productive (in the case of peasants); 2. enough luxuries to motivate being loyal (upper classes, and more recently, middle classes). I recently read an excerpt from cardinal Richelieu’s “Political Testament” which was addressed to the King, whereby he sounded deeply submissive and subservient. It illustrated how people thought of themselves as completely at the hands of the King at the time; even the intellectuals.It is convenient to forget nowadays that for all human history this was the natural condition of all people except the king/queen: deep submission. This submission was of course, economic at its core. They all depended on the ruler, and laboured hard for them.Nowadays the seeming of equality and equal opportunity and political freedom and democracy makes people truly convinced they are free and there is no pyramid anymore. I highly doubt that. But that is for another discussion. What matters in the present conversation is that most people have evolved over a long history to be submissive; and a small fraction of them, have submission to a perceived figure of female authority, a dominant woman. And they sexualize that. The intense sexual pleasure they feel motivates the submission and secures a deep bond. Because, without these brain opiates, submission doesn’t make much sense, does it? “Freedom” and the liberal shebang.I therefore posit that submission is a core reality of the complex human system and key to how it’s ran (triangle-structured); and that for some reason this was motivated in individuals through sexual & emotional rewards; that are known to motivate people into all sorts of crazy things — like having kids.BDSM gives these evolved instincts the opportunity to be lived as fantasy away from the historical & biological reality that created them; isolated and, what’s more, consensually. And the men I know who submit financially are seeking out a female figure that unconsciously reminds them of the entitled Queen their ancestors will have fought wars for, brought literal tribute for, sought to seek approval of, and depended of with their life. Or maybe just the mother of the family, or the elusive unattainable mistress — if they’re like, more peasantly in their desire.This is why being a good dominatrix is a rare accomplishment, to be that figure that men want to fall at the feet of, you effectively have to, psychologically, either be born with entitlement and superiority (more or less deserved; I would say the 19-yr old instafindommes are less deserving intellectually and more physically), or come to a mature understanding of it and play it to men. The latter is more performative and therefore less real. But women always find ways to make the performance work.I REMIND THE READER THAT THIS IS TOTALLY OPPOSITE CONTRARY OF WHAT WOMEN ARE IN GENERAL. This is a rare type of female, as most women are encouraged to be “selfless”, “generous”, “kind”, “charming”, and other euphemisms you have out there, for what is basically submissive behaviour.This is not totally dissimilar to Bardot Smith’s discussion but she has a feminist slant: the popular hashtag #giveyourmoneytowomen is based on the idea that women do not get paid for the traditional emotional and domestic labour they put into things, and she seeks to correct it by direct donation. It makes a bit of sense, if you think about it.Like other people have noted, it is close to financial ruin if done by the some people. But also, if you go out and stumble into a drunk car driver, you can get killed. So I wouldn’t dismiss the fetish because some people abuse it.When I told a lady I beat men for a living last year, she quoted her past physical abuse at the hands of her husband to firmly oppose any consensual beatings. Illogical, right?What I am saying is, these instincts have evolved already, there is no changing our intricate nature (yet). The best you can do with them is live them safely. Don’t blame the person for something nature created.HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY PERVERSION? TAKE IT UP WITH EVOLUTION.We are as a species evolved to feel financial submission to others, and fewer of us, domination. We eroticise it too sometimes. It’s not a disgrace, it’s no one’s fault, it should just be lived with care.I can’t stress enough, if it’s not for you, you are not the findomme’s public. you don’t have to take it personally that I offer the service.I don’t sit in front of the Ferrari representation and waive my fist in fury because I can’t afford the car. Or because I don’t want it. Whichever of the two…